Benefits and Applications of Low-Carbon Air Conditioning
The proposal of China’s “Dual Carbon” goals drives the refrigeration and air-conditioning industry to develop low-carbon air-conditioning solutions in the future. Making full use of natural cold sources is one of the key approaches to cut air-conditioning energy consumption. Natural cold source refers to the utilization of natural cooling resources to supply cooling capacity for air-conditioning systems, including evaporative cooling technology, heat pipe cooling technology, fresh air direct cooling technology and fluorine pump cooling technology.
Among them, evaporative cooling is a highly efficient natural cooling technology. It uses water as the cooling medium and relies on the wet-bulb temperature difference in air as the driving force. The air temperature drops by absorbing latent heat of vaporization when water evaporates. As an air conditioning technology, evaporative cooling systems have no compressors and deliver high energy efficiency with remarkable power-saving performance. Using water as the cooling medium helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Besides, evaporative cooling air-conditioning systems can supply 100% fresh air for buildings, which brought extra advantages during the COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control period.
Evaporative cooling technologies can be categorized by end products: air-side evaporative cooling, water-side evaporative cooling and fluorine-side evaporative cooling. By unit type, they are divided into evaporative cooling fresh air units, evaporative cooling air handling units, evaporative cooling chiller units, and hybrid evaporative cooling & mechanical refrigeration units.
Evaporative cooling technology gains wide recognition not only for its simple working principle but also the low equipment cost. Its initial investment is half that of conventional refrigeration air conditioning, effectively easing power shortage during summer peak electricity demand. Adopting water as the cooling medium reduces the use of Freon in traditional air conditioners and protects the atmospheric environment. It is known as “zero-cost refrigeration technology”, “green air conditioning” and “bionic air conditioning”. It is a genuine energy-saving, eco-friendly and sustainable refrigeration technology. Thanks to years of research by Chinese engineers, this technology has been widely applied in industrial buildings, power plants (nuclear power stations), public buildings, rail transit, data centers and outdoor facilities across China, delivering outstanding results and positive customer feedback.
